9 Comments:

No, but the Bush Administration does. And not only about statistics. The idea that the GOP doesn't promote activist judges is such a pile of crap. Of course they do. They always have and always will. The line about liberals legislating from the bench is a classic case of self judgement. Thanks for the statistics. Brandon

I just read your profile. I would MUCH rather see your kind of obsessive compulsive behavior than the kind we're finding on the radical right these days. Pop over to Coalition for a Republican-Free America, and you'll find a parody of a diagnostic manual in which we discuss a new form of psychosis: CHRISTOPHRENIA. Have fun with it and see you over there. Brandon.

Yea exactly, if they don't get three judges passed, they poop their pants, but none of them will answer to the charges of the Clinton Administration, they just blow it off, as if they are too good to answer that question. More like, they act as if they are too good for the truth.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Christian think tank Family Research Council, baselessly accused Democratic senators of opposing President Bush's judicial nominees because of their deeply held Christian beliefs in opposition to abortion rights.

"What is alarming about these 10 nominees that Mrs. Clinton and others say are bad or extreme is that they're people of deep religious conviction. And what this happens to be is a filibuster of people of faith," Perkins stated on his April 18 radio broadcast, referring to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and other Senate Democrats who have filibustered a handful of Bush's judicial nominees. Retired judge Charles W. Pickering Sr., who President Bush recess-appointed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Democrats filibustered his nomination, joined Perkins, claiming falsely that Senate Democrats filibustered his nomination solely because of Pickering's anti-abortion position:

PICKERING: The reason that I didn't get an up-and-down vote is because the groups that opposed me were concerned about the abortion issue. ... The issue that drove the engine of opposition was abortion.

PERKINS: It's almost as if there's a radical minority in the U.S. Senate that's saying this: "You have to choose between your faith and public service."

PICKERING: Tony, that's exactly right. ... It was very evident with the Catholic nominees that anybody who had strong religious convictions on the issue of abortion, they [Democratic senators] were going to filibuster.

In fact, the Senate has confirmed 205 of Bush's judicial nominees -- most with substantial Democratic support -- and few, if any, of these confirmed judges have voiced support for abortion rights. Indeed, many are overtly anti-abortion (e.g., Michael W. McConnell, confirmed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, John G. Roberts, confirmed to the District of Columbia Circuit, and James Leon Holmes, confirmed to the Eastern District of Arkansas.) What distinguishes the nominees whom Democrats have filibustered is what Democrats say is their unwillingness or inability to put aside their ideological views and follow the law. In the case of the three nominees listed below, opponents have cited specific actions and statements related to abortion that run counter to precedent and statutory law:

Priscilla Owen While serving on the Texas Supreme Court, Owen dissented strongly from the court's 2000 ruling on Jane Doe 1(II), 19 S.W.3d 346, which determined that "Jane Doe" had met the legal requirements for a judicial bypass under the state's parental notification law governing abortion for minors. Owen said the court had acted "irresponsibly." Her dissent earned a harsh rebuke from fellow Republican justice Alberto Gonzales, who is now U.S. attorney general. Gonzales accused Owen essentially of rewriting the law by ignoring the language of the statute and legislative history, and wrote that adopting Owen's position on the case "would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism." Bush nominated Owen to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2002 and re-nominated her in February 2005.

Opponents of Owen's nomination have cited numerous other reasons for their opposition.

Janice Rogers Brown

Brown was the sole dissenter in the 1997 California Supreme Court case of Academy of American Pediatrics v. Lungren, in which the court ruled that a parental consent law restricting minors from receiving abortions explicitly violated the state constitution's right to privacy. In her dissent in the case, Brown claimed that the California constitution's explicit right of privacy was no broader than the right of privacy under the U.S. Constitution, despite clear state supreme court precedent to the contrary.

The State Bar of California staunchly opposed Brown's nomination to the California Supreme Court. The bar stated in 1996 that her "judicial opinions were insensitive to established precedents and improperly reflected [her] philosophical and personal views." When Bush nominated Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in July 2003, the Congressional Black Caucus stated: "Justice Brown's record proves that she is unable or unwilling to divorce her personal views from her responsibility to fairly interpret the law or the Constitution." Progressive advocacy group People for the American Way (PFAW) outlined the numerous substantive reasons for Democratic opposition to Brown's nomination in a 2003 report.

William H. Pryor

Bush granted Pryor a recess appointment to the 11th Circuit over Senate Democrats' objections last year. Democrats have cited a number of statements by Pryor, a former Alabama attorney general, as evidence that Pryor would be unwilling to uphold the constitutional right to an abortion. For example, he referred to the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade as "the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children." He has criticized the Supreme Court's ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey "for preserv[ing] the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history: Roe v. Wade." In a response to a 2002 NARAL Pro Choice America survey of attorneys general, he reiterated, "Abortion is murder, and Roe v. Wade is an abominable decision." At Pryor's June 2003 Judiciary Committee hearing, several senators, including Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who is now chairman of the committee, expressed concern that Pryor would be unable to separate these strongly held views from what the law requires:

SPECTER: With that personal belief, Attorney General Pryor, what assurances can you give to the many who are raising the question as to whether, when you characterized it as an abomination and slaughter, that you can follow the decision of the United States Supreme Court, which you consider an abomination and having led to slaughter?

Apart from positions Pryor has taken on abortion issues, Democrats have cited numerous other substantive objections to Pryor's nomination.

Further, though Pickering claimed that Democrats blocked his nomination because of his views on abortion, Democrats actually cited the extraordinary lengths to which he went to force federal prosecutors to drop a charge against a convicted cross-burner in order to circumvent a mandatory five-year sentence. In 2002, a group of law professors wrote Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who was then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to assert that Pickering's letter to the Justice Department in the cross-burning case represented a breach of judicial ethics. Democrats raised this issue repeatedly during his 2003 nomination hearing. Pickering announced his retirement in December 2004.

Apart from this case, Senate Democrats also cited other factors in their opposition to his nomination: Pickering's district court decisions were frequently reversed by the 5th Circuit for violating "well-settled principles of law"; his stated predisposition against claims of employment discrimination; and a false statement he made to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding his contact with the segregationist Mississippi Sovereignty Commission

Snave, I just saw your grand appearance in the couchwarfare comic, it was great! Your fame is spreading! Also, it was nice just to learn about the website, it's very inventive. I thought I had clicked through all of your recommended blogs, but apparently not. Anyway, thanks for the heads up, hope you're having a good week!

Thanks, Matt! Damien and I live thousands of miles apart, but he does seem to know me rather well!! I thought Lizzy and McG were the deserved stars of the show, but I love the way Damien made me look like half-Eraserhead and half-David Lynch! That tends to be my general mindset, so he is a very perceptive guy! And my week is "so far so good", hope yours is likewise!

Sam, thanks for the lengthy but extremely interesting comment! The fundamentalists seem to be ever at the ready to claim they're being persecuted. I have no problem with mainstream protestant churches, it's this new breed of evangelicals that has me concerned. I love Media Matters, by the way! What a great site!

Brandong, thanks for the recommendation of the CRFA site! It's a blast! If you ever need a guest commentator, I'd be happy to lend some of my OCD thoughts. Thanks for coming by!

Lizzy, I will drive the tank and aim the barrel if you load up the red paint! 8-)>

Hey I'm just doing my part to spread the good names of Lizzy and Snaver across this little blogger village. Today the Blogsphere tomorrow the world!

I think the only redeming feature about conservative judges (many may not follow my reasoning) is that they typically hamstring themselves by fairly rigid readings of law. Very, very interesting times.

I was looking at the Senate judicial committee webiste (I think it was) last year, and they give minority and majority opinions about a lot of the appointments. Anyway, just about all the minority statements started off with the stats on how many appointments they had ok'd. They were clearly trying to compensate from the media smear where the right had been labelling them obstructionist.

It gets back to that book (I forget the guys name) about how the right sets the frame for political discussions by their values. One of the author's points is that if they know they are weak on something, they just frame things the opposite of reality. His example was that the "Healthy Forest Initiative" should really be the "Leave No Tree Behind" Act, etc.

I think the main thing to point out about them calling the dems obstructionists when they are clearly getting the majority of their appointments is that they are cry babies (just like they accuse the left of being all the time.)

Just like they were cry babies about Bill Moyers show NOW and cry babies about NPR, and cry babies every time a journalist does his job and examines their records in office.

About Me

I am a native eastern Oregonian, and have lived here 44 of my 56 years. I left at 20, but was back by age 32 to be near my parents to help them in times of need. I don't fit in politically here because I view things from a decidedly left wing perspective... but that's o.k. because I love the people, I love the area and for the most part I like living here. I enjoy family time, listening to music, reading books, traveling, bird watching, hiking, backpacking, watching movies, keeping up on politics, watching sports, sitting at the computer so much I get sores on my ass, and playing music... if you need a band for your party or celebration, let me know; I play keyboards and sing for a rock and roll band, and we do mostly "classic rock". (I also like to play guitar and bass and other instruments, but those are for my private enjoyment only!) I am mainly an agnostic/skeptic, but would consider myself spiritual. I work in schools and in clinical settings as a speech/language therapist. It is enjoyable work and it pays some of the bills. I have a rather unpredictable sense of humor, which can get me in trouble at times, but hey, is life worth living without laughter? I think not!